Albert Sabin
Albert Bruce Sabin , before 1920 Albert Saperstein (born August 26, 1906 in Białystok / Poland (then Russian Empire , now Poland ), † March 3, 1993 in Washington, DC ), was a doctor and virologist . He developed the polio vaccine against poliomyelitis (polio) on the basis of preliminary work of Jonas Salk .
Career
Sabin was born as Albert Saperstein on August 26, 1906 into a Jewish family in Białystok in what was then the Russian Empire ; his hometown is now in Poland. In 1920/21 he emigrated with his family to the USA and changed his name to Sabin. He studied medicine at New York University and graduated in 1931 with a Medical Doctor (MD). In 1930 he became an American citizen.
From 1935 to 1939, Sabin worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research . In 1939 he was appointed Professor of Pediatrics and Pediatric Research at the University of Cincinnati . He worked there until 1969. As an alternative to the vaccination against poliomyelitis with killed viruses, which was first introduced in the USA in 1955 and developed by Jonas E. Salk, Sabin had worked on an oral vaccine based on live viruses that had weakened virulence. In 1960 the oral vaccination against polio developed by him was used for the first time on a large scale in the USA after successful preliminary studies from 1956 on children in the Soviet Union. The development of the vaccine is now considered to be Sabin's greatest scientific achievement. In 1962, the vaccine was finally licensed in the United States. Large-scale vaccination campaigns ("Sabin Sundays") brought considerable success in the fight against poliomyelitis in the USA and other countries.
Later, his scientific work led Sabin to the Weizmann Institute (1970–72), to the National Cancer Institute of the USA (1974) and to the Medical University of South Carolina (1974–82). Sabin also developed a serological test for toxoplasmosis ("Sabin Feldmann Test").
The last station of his scientific career was the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Studies in the Health Sciences, a facility belonging to the National Institute of Health (NIH). He worked there full-time until 1986, and in 1988 he retired.
Awards (selection)
- 1951: Member of the National Academy of Sciences
- 1955: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1956: Howard Taylor Ricketts Award
- 1958: Induction into the Polio Hall of Fame in Warm Springs, Georgia
- 1962: Robert Koch Prize
- 1964: Bavarian Order of Merit
- 1964: Antonio Feltrinelli Prize
- 1965: Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research
- 1970: National Medal of Science
- 1974: John Howland Award
- 1986: Medal of Freedom ( "The Presidential Medal of Freedom"), the highest civilian honor in the US
- 1986: Order of Friendship of Peoples (Soviet Union)
Publications
- Characteristics and genetic potencialities of experimentally produced and naturally occurring variants of poliomyelitis virus , in: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 61 (1955), 924-938.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Ralf Bröer: Alberto Bruce Sabin , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart and Christoph Gradmann (eds.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the 20th century , 1st edition 1995 CH Beck Munich p. 315, medical dictionary. From antiquity to the present , 2nd edition 2001, pp. 169 + 275, 3rd edition 2006 Springer Verlag Heidelberg, Berlin, New York p. 287. Ärztelexikon 2006 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585 -3 .
Web links
- Biography on the website of the University of Cincinnati ( Memento of September 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Obituary in the New York Times, March 4, 1993
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sabin, Albert |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sabin, Albert B .; Sabin, Albert Bruce (full name); Saperstein, Albert (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American doctor, virologist, developer of the oral polio vaccine |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 26, 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Białystok , Russian Empire (now Poland ) |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 3, 1993 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC , United States |